


Dynamic kinetic stability

by logicalcomplexity



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Do you see where I'm going with this, Inaccurate and inappropriate use of hypnotherapy, M/M, Military gays in space, Minor Blood and Gore, Minor/Original Character Deaths, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sci-Fi AU, Sexual Content, Sledge has a control kink, Snafu is suggestible, Varying degrees of major character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 04:51:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18564283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/logicalcomplexity/pseuds/logicalcomplexity
Summary: Put simply, dynamic kinetic stability proposes that variation in a system which improves or maintains system longevity will persist, while any variation decreasing stability will be selected against. According to chemical kinetics, more complex molecules are usually more stable. Therefore, variations increasing the molecular complexity of system components will persist, because they also enhance the longevity of the system at large.Or, how a complex relationship evolves between two unlikely partners: a worn-out gunner, Snafu Shelton, and an optimistic pilot, Eugene Sledge.





	Dynamic kinetic stability

**Author's Note:**

> I finally wrote a one-shot! :D Shout out to my editors OOOtOOOt and bearkare for helping me get this ready to post. I hope y'all love sci-fi, space, and Sledgefu as much as I do. 
> 
> I think I've tagged all the important warnings. Just be aware that there are a variety of sexual acts going on in this fic. Enjoy!

Everything began and ended in space. A black velvet void, a cold vacuum of cosmic dust, and dimensions incomprehensible to the human consciousness. Ever growing, ever hungering. Stretching far and away, tunneling like Snafu’s vision.

They got hit. He didn’t know how, and he didn’t see what. One minute he was breathing, lining up a shot, and now he was not. Not breathing, not thinking, just floating. He reached out, into the darkness quickly drawing over his eyes, but he couldn’t remember who he was reaching for. Just knew that there was someone out there—right here, right now—that should be with him, should be holding his hand as he fell into the quiet, endless night.

—

“Walden is dead.”

Sergeant Burgin couldn’t be more dramatic if he tried. He stood at the foot of the hospital bed, still in his flight suit. Blood dripped down his forehead, snaking over his nose, contrasting with his bright blue eyes. He had his helmet tucked under one arm. The visor was cracked, spattered with gore.

“Did we win, though?” Snafu closed his eyes. He had broken his left arm, his collarbone, and several ribs. The doctors pumped him full of so much morphine that he didn’t feel any of it. Couldn’t even feel sad that his pilot had bit the dust.

“Barely. It’s getting harder. Every unit took damage—half our pilots are out, over seventy-five percent of our gunners. I think you’re the only gunner in our squad left alive, Shelton.”

Snafu had to laugh at that, a rattling, watery noise. There was fluid in his lung, from when his own rib had punctured it and let the blood rush in. “I’ve always been one lucky son of a bitch.”

Recovery took him months. They didn’t have the resources for fancy medical equipment out here on the fringes of Allied space. On the colonies or even at subspace stations, bone fractures could be healed within a week, but they were doing things the old-fashioned way out here: with splints, bed rest, and highly addictive painkillers. He missed the pills when they stopped prescribing them. He was practically vibrating out of his skin with the need to dull the sudden loneliness and unbearable static in his brain. In hindsight, withdrawing from the pain medication could explain all the things that went wrong after the replacement troops showed up.

The first mistake was retaking the aptitude test. Granted, Snafu didn’t have much of a choice in that. All injured personnel returning to active duty were required to retake the exam. The problem lie in that Snafu couldn’t remember retaking it. They assigned him the gunner station again, thankfully, but the gap in his memory bothered him. He said as much, but they assured him that it wasn’t a problem, that the next pilot he partnered with could be trusted even if he couldn’t trust himself.

The second mistake was the pilot assignment. He felt sluggish and bleary during the drills, rotating numbly through the gunner’s seats of all the ships in their squad. The ships all looked the same, triangular hunks of metal suspended in vacuous, deadly space. The gunner cockpit was sealed off from the main cabin like an escape pod, the design intended to save at least one life depending on whether the gunner or the pilot got taken out. Snafu felt isolated and vulnerable in his seat, separated from the inky blackness and crushing cold of space by the dome of silica glass that allowed him a 360° view. The pilots all sounded the same, garbled with static through the comms. He couldn’t connect the names and faces. They put him in the ship of a man named Kirill.

Kirill didn’t question Snafu the way that Snafu questioned himself. The doctors gave Snafu a clean bill of health, declaring him sound of body and of mind, and that was good enough for him. But Snafu couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. His head ached in the mornings and his hands shook on the console. And then there were moments where the stars formed impossible shapes in the sky. Maybe that wasn’t unusual—everyone out here got hypnotized by them at one point or another—but the phantasmal spirals, vortices, and blinking lights in the distance sucked him in. His whole body locked up when he saw them, and Kirill didn’t notice, kept flying into fire with an incapacitated gunner. Consequently, the first battle they were sent into became Kirill’s last.

Ortega came after and Snafu thought she was better. She was a sensitive, cautious pilot and noticed right away when he started going quiet over the radio. She argued with Burgin, spitting mad as she tried to get Snafu removed from active duty. But the higher ups insisted that they couldn’t afford to pull any people from the line, so as long as Snafu didn’t freeze up during evaluations they saw no reason to comply with her request. Burgin felt particularly sorry about it and kept them to the back of the squad formation as often as possible. She managed to stay alive for six skirmishes. Her death wasn’t Snafu’s fault; the entire company just got overwhelmed. He was lucid the whole time, firing futilely into the hull of the one-man cruiser that kamikazed into the nose of their ship. Ortega tried to dodge, ended up taking the force of the crash directly into the pilot’s cockpit, tearing the ship in half. Snafu watched her corpse spin through space.

He stopped caring after that. Rinsed through three more nameless pilots before Burgin presented him with Private Eugene Sledge. None of the replacements wanted to fly with Snafu. Spooked by gossip from the other vets, who were convinced Snafu was cursed, they’d drawn straws in the cafeteria and Sledge came up short. Sledge looked positively green with nausea, eyes cemented to the floor as Snafu glared at him and shoveled fake meat and gluey rice into his mouth, half-listening to Burgin ramble on about someone’s test scores.

Snafu could tell that Sledge was from one of the richer colonies, his skin alabaster white and practically fluorescent in the lurid overhead lighting of the mess hall. It looked soft, unmarred—like he’d never had a hard day in his life. He was tall and slim, but not gaunt. His long, rectangular face was rounded at the edges with lingering baby fat. Too young and too pure, like a child playing soldier. And his hair, russet red like autumn oak leaves, was sleek and shiny. Snafu wanted to dig his fingers into that hair and pull until his scalp came off.

Burgin ceased his yapping, and Snafu pointed his fork at Sledge. “He’ll be dead within a month.”

“Snafu!” Burgin gaped at him and turned to Sledge, clapping him on the shoulder reassuringly. “He doesn’t mean that. He’s ornery.”

Sledge didn’t say anything, pale lips drawn out in a thin line. His dark eyes flicked over Snafu’s face nervously, like a dog waiting to be kicked. Snafu focused on his food, disinterested in learning too much about a boy who would be dead by the end of the week.

The firefights were coming faster and harder as the Allied forces continued to hold the invisible line that they’d drawn between themselves and the rest of the universe. Sometimes Snafu entertained the idea that all their sacrifice was truly pointless. With the ingenuity of space travel, they should just pack up and leave. Find a new galaxy with aliens less hell bent on destroying their planets.

The company referred to their enemy simply as ‘the Horde’, because their ranks appeared endless. Naturally, there were subclasses. The single pilot kamikaze cruisers were ‘Berserkers’ and the normal two-seater fighters were ‘Brutes.’ Their weapons technology was evenly matched, therefore the difference between them and the Horde must be the will to live. The Horde wasted no time crashing into their ships, if they thought they were losing. Most of Snafu’s pilots died in such collisions and, as he saw a Brute streaking towards them with one battered engine, he assumed Sledge’s fate would be no different.

Then the world tilted. Sledge turned their ship so sharply that the Brute came up parallel to them rather than striking them perpendicularly. The bottom of the Brute scraped over the dome of the gunner’s cockpit, jagged metal screeching over the near indestructible glass. Snafu’s pulse thundered in his ears as he watched the weakened patches of the dome cracking under the tension.

Sledge’s voice crackled over the comms, frantic yet commanding. “Shelton, get into the main cabin!”

But Snafu froze up, watching, with an absurd sense of relief, the spidery thin cracks grow in the glass.

“Shelton, get out!”

When it broke, he would be sucked out into space. The flight suit could stand a fair amount of pressure, but the cold would kill him before he could even blink. A death like that sounded peaceful. Although, perhaps not. He was sure his body would be ripped to shreds first, for the dome wouldn’t shatter and he would be forced to fit through the cracks and holes in the glass.

Suddenly, the hatch to the gunner’s cockpit opened, and Sledge clambered through. Snafu stared at him, confused. Was he trying to get them both killed?

Sledge proved to be unexpectedly strong and fast. He unfastened Snafu from the seat, hauled him over to the hatch, and threw him down. The fall from the gunner’s cockpit wasn’t far, but it did hurt when his helmeted head bounced off the floor. The pain startled Snafu out of his stupor. He sprawled, gazing up in awe as Sledge resealed the hatch. What the fuck did he save him for?

The dome breaking made no sound; the noise of impactions and explosions muffled by the vacuum of space. The pilot’s dash blared in alarm, the only indication that it had happened at all. Sledge hopped down from the gunner’s ladder and darted back to the console. He silenced the alarm and threw himself into his seat, snarling at Snafu over his shoulder. “What the hell is wrong with you? Is this how all your pilots die? Saving your sorry ass?”

Snafu got up slowly, buckling himself into the spare seat next to the ladder. Why did Sledge save him if he thought he would die? He watched, stunned, as Sledge hailed the mothership, signaling their retreat and requesting permission to dock.

“Should’ve left me up there,” Snafu said finally. If he was cursed, then it was only a matter of time before Sledge ended up dead because of him.

Sledge shook his head. With their helmets on, Snafu couldn’t see his expression, couldn’t tell how he felt about Snafu’s death wish. Foolishly, he wanted Sledge to be sad about it. He wanted Sledge to make him want to live again.

—

Because of the damaged gunner’s cockpit, Sledge was put on reserve while the ship underwent repairs. Unlike gunners, pilots tended to stay with their rides. Snafu prepared himself to be reassigned, once again, and reported to Burgin the day after their minor crash.

“Oh, you’re on reserve too,” Burgin remarked, eyes widening as he scrolled through the duty rosters, just as surprised by the news as Snafu. “Looks like Sledge requested that you remain his gunner.”

Snafu could barely breathe. The only time he hadn’t been on active duty was when he was injured. It felt impossible, somehow, that he should be clean and whole for once in his service and not be expected to jump in a ship and fly towards danger at a moment’s notice. “The fuck did he do that for?”

“Beats me. You’re an asshole.”

Out of curiosity, Snafu tracked Sledge down to confront him about the request. He found him in the hangar, wrist deep in the delicate wiring of the ship’s pilot console as a pair of mechanics worked on the gunner’s cockpit. The boy was full of surprises, Snafu mused as he observed him. Few pilots actually understood how their gear worked, and fewer still were expected to help with maintenance or repairs. Snafu cleared his throat deliberately to get Sledge’s attention.

Sledge straightened, pulling his hands out of the console and setting aside the tiniest soldering iron Snafu had ever seen. He turned around and paused, clearly expecting someone else. He had the most ridiculous pair of wire-framed glasses perched on his nose, and he tipped his head down so he could look over them.

“Thought pilots had perfect vision,” Snafu teased.

Sledge smirked, plucking the glasses from the bridge of his nose. He folded them, fingertips sliding over the thin silver arms, before putting them down next to the soldering iron. “They’re magnifying glasses, not corrective lenses. Something I can help you with?”

Snafu slinked closer, suddenly feeling a bit shy. When they’d first met, he’d gotten the impression that Sledge was rather young and out of his element. Now, dressed in utilities and smelling faintly of motor oil, Sledge seemed older and distinctly knowledgeable. Snafu supposed that Sledge always seemed nice, judging from his interactions with the others in their company, but now Sledge looked trustworthy and capable. A working man, rather than some scrawny trust-fund baby.

“Why’d you request me?” Snafu asked, gaze fixed on Sledge’s hands. He wondered if they were calloused, if the pads of his fingers would be rough on his tongue. “You know I’m crazy—I’m gonna get you killed.”

Sledge shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets with a sigh. Snafu missed the sight of them. “Don’t be mistaken. If I die, I’m taking you down with me.”

Snafu nodded. An understandable but unrealistic expectation. “But why?”

“You read the news much?”

“No.” Snafu couldn’t remember the last time he’d read anything. He was so sensitive to sights and noise that he didn’t watch television either. Spent the hours between drills and firefights sleeping or eating or staring blankly at the ceiling of his bunk.

“Well, we’re losing this war.” Sledge took a step towards him, moving out of the glow of the hangar lights. The shadows transformed him, matured him from a sweet ginger into someone tall and handsome. “And, seeing as we’re all gonna die anyways, I might as well try to do some good with what little time I have left.”

Snafu frowned, cocking his head curiously. “Woulda been good to let me die yesterday.”

There it was again, that pitying shake of his head. Sledge’s expression was sad. The kind of sad you saw at funerals of people who died suddenly and too young, in freak accidents or from unexpected illness. An anguished crumpling of the brow, mouth twitching with the uncertainty of how to move forward in a world where good people died for no reason. A countenance achingly familiar to Snafu, who’d been to so many of those funerals in his life—both before and now—that he found himself wanting…wanting what?

Sledge sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I won’t apologize for getting you out of there, Shelton. Every life is good for something, even yours.”

Snafu snorted derisively, mirroring Sledge’s stance. “And I won’t ever thank you for savin’ my ass.” Except he wanted to. “But I will thank you for puttin’ me on reserve. You know that the higher ups’ll let us have beer?”

A dimple appeared on Sledge’s right cheek when he smiled. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“I haven’t had a cold one in maybe two years. I’m gonna sit in the rec room all afternoon and get good and drunk.”

“Two years?” Sledge’s jaw dropped, and he looked boyish again. “That how long you’ve been at this outpost?”

“Give or take.” Snafu didn’t like to think too much about it. The terms of Snafu’s military service were different than most on account of his citizenship. If he dwelled too much on how completely the Allied forces owned him, he’d blow himself out of an airlock. “Anyways, I’ll leave you to your work.”

Snafu left before Sledge could ask more questions, making his way through the maze of the space station to the enlisted personnel’s recreation room. The rec room had a snack bar and all kinds of entertainment: televisions, games, books, cards, computers of all sizes, and video chat services so you could call home. There was also a giant screen that projected a video of a tranquil, sunny meadow, complete with the smell of grass and the warmth of an artificial sun.

Grabbing a beer, a computer tablet, and a set of wireless headphones, Snafu settled into a lounge chair in front of the screen to soak in a little extra vitamin D. He put on an Earth music podcast he’d listened to in the hospital after Walden’s death. The hosts were some music theory nerds from a colony just outside the Solar system. They were methodically chewing through each century and decade of Earth music, playing one-hit wonders and whole albums, afterwards describing what made each song or band particularly popular in the context of Earth history. Snafu didn’t really understand any of it, but the cadence of their conversations reminded him of the nonsense Walden would spout during downtime. If he closed his eyes, it was like Walden hadn’t died at all.

Three beers in and partway through the rock phase of the 1970’s, a hand came to rest gently on Snafu’s shoulder, jolting him out of the blank haze he was floating in.

“Relax, it’s just me.” Sledge squeezed him reassuringly before he let go, sitting down in the chair next to Snafu’s. He squinted into the fake sunlight as he cracked open a can of beer and took a sip. He grimaced and stuck out his tongue. “This tastes like piss.”

Snafu pushed the headphones off his head, letting them rest around his neck. “Never had a beer before?”

“No, didn’t have any alcohol where I grew up.” Figures that Sledge was from a dry colony.

“Well, drink it fast and it’ll taste better. If you let it get warm, it tastes even more like piss.”

Sledge’s lip curled with displeasure, but he drank more anyways, wincing. “Does all alcohol taste so awful?”

Snafu chuckled at the faces Sledge was making. Like a kid eating their vegetables. “No, there’s some nicer ones but if day-drinkin’ is the plan, then a light lager is the best option. You from an SBC colony?”

“That obvious, huh?” Sledge tapped his fingers on the cold can, fingertips smudging the condensation. “Where you from?”

“A lil’ dumpster fire called Earth.”

Sledge eyes widened, brown irises enriched with striations of amber in the yellow glow of the screen. “Seriously? I thought nothing could live there.”

Snafu shrugged. Centuries ago, the oligarchs of Earth took off into space, leaving the poor behind to rot on the dying planet. Like cockroaches, small populations of the human race persisted, surviving unpredictable storms, heatwaves, polar vortices, and endless droughts. To escape Earth, as so few of them did, required a particular kind of perseverance. “Why ain’t you still at home? Thought SBC wanted nothin’ to do with this war. It bein’ a sign of the end times and all that.”

Sledge bit his lip, sheepish and sufficiently distracted from Snafu’s odd origins. “Ah, well, I got excommunicated from the church.”  

“Excommunicated?” Snafu repeated the word slowly. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Like kicked out. Banned forever.”

“Why?”

Sledge blushed, gaze falling to the floor. “I was found guilty of abnormal and perverse behavior.”

Snafu rolled his eyes. “Speak fuckin’ English, please.”

Sledge coughed demurely, face flushing impossibly redder. “I got caught eating out my physics professor.”

“You dog!” Snafu snickered and sat up, grinning. And here he thought Sledge was some blushing virgin. “You got arrested for going down on someone in public? I knew SBC was backwards, but shit!”

Sledge set his beer on the floor and covered his face with his hands. “It wasn’t in public. It was because we were both men. His neighbor saw us somehow. Recorded everything. And because homosexuality is illegal there, I got the boot. Technically, I’m still an SBC citizen but I can’t set foot on their stations or planets for the next fifteen years.”

Snafu knew he should feel bad, but he didn’t. Here Sledge was—flushed so pretty with embarrassment, telling Snafu he got banned from SBC space for eating ass—and for the first time in years, he _wanted_. “Ain’t illegal here, boo. Allied forces welcome all sorts.”

Sledge lowered his hands, lower lip caught between his teeth. Their eyes met, and Snafu wondered if Sledge could see the loneliness hidden in that space behind his pupils, as dark and cold as the rest of the cosmos. Sledge looked away first, pink tongue darting out to sweep across his lips before he snatched up his beer to take another sip. “Yeah, well that’s why I’m here. Why are you?”

“Sold my soul for a one-way ticket off of Earth,” Snafu snarked. “Was a good, easy ride until the war started.”

Sledge frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know—indentured servitude, slavery, whatever you wanna call it. Allied forces will scoop up Earthlings in exchange for a lifetime of work. I’m their man ‘til I die, and if the war’s goin’ the way you say it is, it might be soon.” Snafu doubted that Sledge knew just how much a light year shuttle ride from Earth cost. Initially working in the oil fields of a massive asteroid, Snafu thought he’d get rich eventually and be able to buy out his contract. Now he knew better.

“Geez, Shelton…” Sledge drained the rest of his beer, tilting his head back and exposing his long neck. Black smudges of engine grease marred the pale skin.

“Now you know what you saved me from, you still think you’re doin’ good? Draggin’ out my misery?” Snafu goaded. He grinned impishly. “Or did ya save me ‘cuz you think I’m cute?”

Face fire-engine red, Sledge clapped a hand to his mouth to keep from spitting out his beer. He swallowed audibly, then started to laugh. Brushing tears from the corner of his eyes, he shot back, “Okay, you’re cute Shelton, but not that cute. I’ve never been that desperate for a date, and I’m not about to start now.”

Snafu pouted but kept on teasing him. “You sayin’ this ain’t a date? Sure feels like it, seein’ as we’re getting’ mushy and talkin’ about what brought us here.”

Sledge quirked an eyebrow. “Are you even gay?”

“I’m whatever. Don’t like labels,” Snafu said, leaning back on the lounge chair. He stretched lazily and crossed his arms behind his head, gazing heavy-lidded at Sledge. “What I really am is curious. Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“What you did. Like, what happened to your man? He get executed, too?”

“Excommunicated,” Sledge corrected, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “And he wasn’t my man, we were just having fun. He wasn’t SBC to begin with, so I think he just went back to his home planet.”

Snafu clicked his tongue. “Damn, Sledge, you are one unlucky son of a bitch, always drawin’ the shortest straw. Not worth the rim job then?”

“Oh my God, could you be any louder?” Sledge hissed, face hidden in his hands again. Even his ears were red, the embarrassed flush crawling down the back of his neck. Snafu liked the mottled pink color, wondered if it radiated heat.

“Relax,” he replied. “Like I said, there’s all sorts here and everybody’s always talkin’ about sex. I mean, what else is there in this world but sex and death? Circle of life, right? Breed and die; rinse, repeat.”

“You’re not one of those nihilists, are you?” Sledge huffed, brown eyes peeking through his slim fingers. “Life is so much more than a chaotic life cycle. Can’t you see?”

Frankly, Snafu couldn’t. He’d seen too much pointless death and violence to be as optimistic as Sledge. That rich kid glow was washing over him again, auburn hair vibrant in the fake setting sun, but it didn’t dampen Snafu’s newfound desire and respect. “Make me.”

—

Snafu had an addictive personality. He took up bad habits easily; smoking, drinking, gambling, and drugs. He shook them off quickly, although being cut off from temptation generally wasn’t his choice. Sledge was an addiction that he hoped he would never have to kick.

He liked spending time with him. The redhead was witty and smart. His voice soothed the weird static that hummed in Snafu’s brain. He also didn’t seem to mind when Snafu lurked around, saying nothing and scowling at him. So Snafu stuck to him like glue, sniffed him out each morning in the mess hall and watched him work on the ship repairs for the rest of the day. Not like Snafu had anything better to do.

Sledge was good with his hands, movements precise and hypnotic. Methodically, he exposed the ships wiring and checked it over, making little repairs and tweaks to improve things. He reduced the white noise on their comm system and the drag in the steering column. Sometimes he talked as he tinkered, but most times he was silent, and Snafu listened to a podcast. He had no idea what Sledge was doing, but he liked his face when he was concentrating; bottom lip tucked between his teeth and eyes narrowed behind those magnifying glasses. Snafu imagined that silky strands of his hair would fall across his forehead if he didn’t have the regulation crew cut.

Sometimes Snafu asked him about his life before the service. Depending on the topic, Sledge would answer. He didn’t tolerate questions about his sexuality or romantic life, shooting Snafu a warning look and scolding him with a curt, “That’s bedroom talk.” To which Snafu usually replied, “Okay, yours or mine?”

Sledge blushed easily, skin so pale it was nearly translucent, and his emotions showed wonderfully in the rosy pink of his cheeks and the dark red of his ears. It didn’t bother Snafu when Sledge rebuked his advances. Making bedfellows out of the personnel in your company simply wasn’t allowed, but Snafu enjoyed flirting with him immensely.

Sledge had plenty to say, though, about the SBC and his education. Snafu could tell he felt conflicted about his native planet. He loved his parents, and they still loved him. His father, a clergyman of the church, tried his best to sweep Sledge’s crime under the rug, but the politics were too complicated to navigate. They ended up making things worse, and now he was barred from communicating with them for two years. In addition to his parents, he missed his dog and his friends and his whole way of life. Up until last summer—a phrase that no longer held any meaning for Snafu—he’d been double majoring in astro-agronomy and physics. He had an internship lined up at a terraforming company. A bright, sparkling future ahead of him and all of it destroyed by the puritanical values of the SBC.

There were so many things Snafu wanted to know. Why that professor? Why not transfer to a college in a colony under a more liberal government? Why enlist?

They replaced the silica glass dome on the gunner’s cockpit before he got a chance to ask.

“Guess we’re back on duty now,” Snafu sighed, perched cross-legged on the nose of the ship. Sledge ran his fingers over the junction between the dome and the titanium alloy plates covering the ship, assessing the seal.

Sledge agreed with a small nod. He sat back on his haunches, the magnifying glasses comically enlarging his eyes. “Guess so.”

The next day found them back on drills, flying in formation with the rest of their squad. Snafu felt strangely motion sick, the stars that whizzed past swirling in a dizzying fashion. It wasn’t Sledge’s flying. The ship cut through the void like butter, and Sledge had a penchant for quick turns. He could flip the ship in the blink of an eye, so fast and smooth that Snafu barely noticed the change. No, it was the stars; they sparkled in the distance, a kaleidoscope of spots that kept drawing his gaze and churning his stomach.

“Shelton, you’re supposed to be testing the phaser,” Sledge reminded him tersely over the comms. Snafu wanted to reply, but his tongue felt too big in his mouth, his head full of cotton. “Shelton?” A shape formed from the spinning pinpricks of light. Ortega, helmet frosted over, body unnaturally rigid. “Hey, Shelton, listen to me. Come back to me.”

Snafu rubbed at his eyes with one trembling hand. She was still there.

Sledge kept talking to him, and Snafu struggled to listen through the blood pounding in his ears. “Shelton, I want you to listen to me. You need to breathe, okay? Just breathe in and hold it. Don’t release it until I tell you.”

Breathing, right. Snafu had forgotten how to do that. He drew in a lungful of air with a gasp, tried to keep it in as Ortega drifted closer, enlarging.

“Good, now let it out slow.”

On the exhale, Ortega swelled, the fractal patterning of ice on her flight suit filling Snafu’s whole field of vision.

“Now breathe in. Hold it. And let it out slowly.”

Snafu complied.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, following Sledge’s instructions on how to breathe. But Sledge kept at it, ordering him to inhale and exhale, and eventually Ortega faded into the galaxy. The flecks of ice became distant stars, the shiny black material of the flight suit sinking into the inky backdrop of space.

Before the next inhale, Snafu interrupted Sledge: “I’m fine, I’m back.”

“Where’d you go?”

Snafu didn’t know. The hallucinations were different every time, and because there was no consistency, no pattern, the doctors didn’t believe him. Or maybe, they couldn’t afford to believe him.

At chow, Sledge confronted him. “You’ve got PTSD. Why the hell haven’t they removed you from active duty?”

Still nauseous, Snafu pushed a lump of congealed spaghetti around on his plate. He had known for a long time that something was wrong with his head and didn’t see the point in getting upset about it. “Doesn’t happen during the tests. I pass all the psych evals just fine.”

“But you have a history of choking during combat and drills. Five pilots have died with you as their gunner, isn’t that proof enough?” Sledge’s face was red with fury, like he hadn’t realized yet how little their lives meant to the Allied forces.

Feeling tired and sick, Snafu gave up on eating. “They don’t give a shit. We’re just bodies to them.”

He got up, intending to go back to his bunk and rest. Surprisingly, Sledge followed him.

“Come on, Sledge,” he snapped irritably as Sledge tailed him through the narrow hallways of the dormitory level. “What do you want me to say? I already told you I’d get you killed.”

Sledge’s brow furrowed intensely in concentration. “We have to figure out a coping mechanism. Something we can do to ground you if you freeze up again.”

“That breathin’ thing worked,” Snafu offered with a shrug, pausing before his bunk. They had private rooms the exact size of a full mattress, useful for little more than sleeping.

Sledge shook his head resolutely. “No, that took too long. In combat, I won’t be able to fly and talk you down.”

“What about a trigger word? Like a sleeper agent, give me a word or phrase to make me snap out of it.” Snafu punched in the keycode to open his door, surreptitiously glancing over at Sledge. He seemed to be seriously considering Snafu’s suggestion.

“I’d have to look into that. I know hypnosis is popular and stuff, but it’s a load of bull if you ask me. Why do you think it’ll work?”

Snafu hummed noncommittally. Up until Sledge said ‘come back to me’, he hadn’t been able to move. The moment stuck with him, like the pleasant stillness in his mind that descended when he listened to Sledge’s voice. “I’m suggestible.”

The next two drills went off without a hitch, but Sledge still researched hypnotherapy during their downtime. Snafu accompanied him to the rec room library, dozing off between the stacks to his music podcast. The hosts were spending longer and longer on each decade, as the creativity of the human race exploded with their population. Snafu could hardly imagine that the near inhospitable rock called Earth had once held over seven billion people.

One evening, Sledge prodded him awake. “What are you always listening to?”

Rather than explain it, Snafu handed him the headphones. Sledge put them on, lower lip pinched between his teeth again as he listened. After a few minutes, he took them off and handed them back. He stood up, dusting lint from the floor off his pants, eyes suddenly very bright. “I have an idea.”

He darted off. Snafu considered running after to him, but he felt too lazy. Instead, he slipped the headphones back on and let himself be mesmerized by the soothing chatter of the hosts and the seemingly endless rows of books.

A week of drills went by before Sledge revealed his grand plan. Just in time too, as Snafu froze up on every flight. Like before, Sledge talked him back from the brink, but Snafu was starting to become aware of the disruptiveness of the technique. Mostly because Burgin mentioned it.

“Is there a reason you’re always falling out of formation? The captain’s starting to bitch about it,” he asked Sledge, as he crawled out of the ship after Snafu.

Sledge jerked his thumb in Snafu’s direction. “I’m not suicidal. If he’s freaking out, I’m gonna fall back, not fly into fire.”

“You know there’s safety in numbers. Fall out in a firefight, the enemy could leap on you.” Burgin glared at Snafu as he warned Sledge, because that’s what had happened to a previous pilot. Snafu ducked his gaze.

“I hear you, Burgin,” Sledge acknowledged, “I’ll try and fix the situation.”

After chow, Sledge grabbed Snafu by the arm and dragged him to his bunk. “Geez, Sledge, was kinda hopin’ you’d buy me dinner first.”

Sledge blushed and rolled his eyes, punching in his door code. “I want to test something.”

He pushed Snafu into the room and gestured for him to sit on the bed, facing the right wall. A square panel of strip lights was mounted there, the kind used to illuminate buttons on ship consoles. The tiny little LED bulbs were connected to a battery pack through delicate copper wiring.

“I think that hypnosis is the problem, not the solution.”

“What the fuck is this?” Snafu sat down hesitantly, folding his legs under himself. The bed dipped as Sledge plopped down next to him.

“You said it yourself, you’re suggestible. Hypnotic trances can be induced by rhythmic motion, light, or sound. That podcast you listen to—the hosts are so monotonous and fucking boring that you fall into a trance right away. And don’t think I don’t notice you staring at me all the time, because your eyes go blank if I’m doing the slightest repetitive motion. So, that got me thinking…”

Sledge flicked a button on the panel and the bulbs began to blink. Not all at once, but every other, leaving a gap between each light. Sometimes they swirled randomly after a particularly quick flicker. “What about space is hypnotic? Why, the stars. But unlike all the other stuff that puts you in a trance, you don’t feel safe in a ship anymore, so you have a panic attack instead of relaxing.”

Snafu felt conflicted, gaze drawn immediately into the flashing lights. Kudos to Sledge for puzzling this out, but he hated how his breathing quickened, becoming progressively tighter and shorter.

“Now,” Sledge’s voice was a hushed whisper, breath warm over the shell of Snafu’s ear. “We just gotta make you feel safe.”  

The main lights of the bunk dimmed incrementally until they were draped in darkness, the teeny twinkling bulbs on the wall the only source of light.

“And we gotta get you trained on my voice, so that when we’re flying, you’ll do whatever I say right away, okay? Now, if you can move I want you to nod. It’s okay if you can’t.” Sledge’s hand rested warm and heavy on the back of Snafu’s neck, soothing, grounding. “I’m gonna play that podcast you like until you relax.”

The droning voices of the hosts started up, at odds with the display on the wall. Snafu drifted, body frozen and head blurring with slight static. The lights coalesced, their irregular blinking forming a tunnel that spun and pulsed.

“Focus on the podcast,” Sledge reminded him softly, thumb brushing firmly over his nape. Snafu liquefied, slithered down the tunnel of sporadic lights and ancient Earth music.

When he came to, Sledge was seated behind him, letting him slump against the warm curve of his body with Snafu’s head tucked under his chin. Snafu felt heavy, like he always did after a freak out in the gunner’s seat. The main lights were on again, the podcast still playing in the background, the horrifying panel switched off.

Sledge jostled him, hands on the middle of Snafu’s back, pushing him into a more upright position. “How do you feel?”

“What the fuck happened?”

“I think I successfully induced a panic attack.” Sledge smiled apologetically. “I don’t really know, since I can’t see what you do in the ship, but your whole body locked up. Hyperventilating, sweating, trembling like a little wet dog.”

Snafu elbowed him in the stomach weakly. “Some great idea this was.”

“Hey, the first step is to accurately diagnose the problem. You’re not gonna be fixed overnight,” Sledge murmured kindly, rubbing Snafu’s back soothingly. “Why don’t you run along and get some real sleep?”

Stumbling to his feet, Snafu bit his tongue, doubting that what they were doing would be any help.

Sledge’s unorthodox brand of hypnotherapy made things worse at first. Thankfully, the Horde hadn’t reared their ugly heads for weeks and they were still on drills, but every time they flew Snafu got trapped in his head. He whined about it, resisting as Sledge pushed him to sit in front of that damn wall of lights again. “You try havin’ two, three panic attacks a day. I’m done! I’m sick of it!”

“We’re close to a breakthrough, I’m sure of it,” Sledge coaxed, holding him close when they were safely inside his room. Sledge ensnared him with affection, body solid against Snafu’s back, arms firm around his chest. “You may be zoning out, but you’re listening to me.”

That was true—somehow Sledge’s voice cut through the static sharper than before. He wasn’t always able to snap him out of it while they were flying, but he could get Snafu to move and talk and even shoot, a facsimile of a functional gunner in the haze of irrational panic.

When the room was dark, illuminated only by the sporadic sparking of the strip lights, Snafu plunged helplessly into the void in his brain. A tar-black fissure, born from the crash that killed Walden and grown fat on the deaths of pilots who had Snafu in their ships. Sledge’s calm voice drifted down to him, intent on luring him out.

“Take a deep breath and nod if you can hear me.” Snafu obeyed. He always pulled out of the noxious spiral faster in the intimacy and quiet of Sledge’s room.

“Two more deep breaths and come back to your body.” His lungs expanded and deflated slowly, limbs starting to tingle. He could feel Sledge; the warmth of his chest against Snafu’s spine, his hands resting just above Snafu’s elbows. The touch gave him a point of reference, a fragile rope to hold and climb up on. He didn’t have this in the ship, just the goddamn stars and Sledge’s precious voice.

“Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“I’m dyin’, Sledge.”

Sledge snickered, forehead resting against Snafu’s shoulder blade. Snafu wanted Sledge to hold him like this all the time. “You’re breathing just fine, nice and slow. How are you really feeling?”

“Fuzzy, like I’m almost there.” Every time the climb got easier. “Tell me to come back.”

“Come back to your body, Shelton.”

Snafu exhaled, quivering. He was right on the edge, he just needed Sledge to give him a hand. “No, not like that.”

“Come back to me.” Sledge uttered, so muffled by Snafu’s shoulder that he could have misheard the words. But it did the trick, and Snafu shook off the trance with a shudder.

Sledge started to move away, and Snafu reached behind to grab him by his short hair, tugging him close again. Their heads knocked together painfully. Sledge winced. “Ow, gently please. My brain is my best feature.”

“It’s easier here than out there.” Snafu shut his eyes, blocking out the little blinking lights. He wanted a moment of peace.

“Of course, it is and always will be.” Sledge pried Snafu’s hand from his hair, but he didn’t bat him away. He stayed near, letting Snafu squeeze his hand so hard the bones creaked. “This is a controlled environment and I’m grounding you in more ways than one. But you’re listening to me, and that’s what’s important. That’s what’ll keep us alive out there.”

Snafu tipped his head back onto Sledge’s shoulder. He opened his eyes a fraction, practiced resisting the hypnotic pattern of the lights. “Tell me to come back to you.”

Sledge chuckled nervously. “Uh, our radio is a public frequency. Anyone on the mothership can tap in and hear us.”

“It’s okay to be gay in space, Sledge.” Sledge sputtered in shock at Snafu’s comment. Snafu ignored him, insisting on the use of the phrase. “Not back to the ship, not back to my body—back to you. It’s the fastest way to snap me out of it, I know it.”

And it was. Their first firefight in weeks, and Snafu dropped into the abyss right away, the shifting of enemy ships across the stars hypnotizing him before they even got into formation. Sledge noticed at once, tone kind but stern as he called him back.

“Come back to me.” The words tethered Snafu like a leash, a sharp tug at his navel that had him shifting in his seat. Alert and awake, like he hadn’t slipped under at all.

“I’m here, Sledge. Let’s give ‘em hell.”

Sledge was a great pilot, weaving in and out of the phaser fire, dodging broken ships and debris. And now that Snafu was lucid, he acted like the sharpshooter he used to be; no longer shooting wildly in some desperate bid to hit something but using burst-fire with deadly precision. The dog fights—those nauseating, pulse pounding dances of death—were brief rushes of adrenaline. Still terrifying, but Snafu could see clearly again, completely focused on the enemy and undistracted by the menacing cosmos.

Their squadron held the line, the mothership patching all the surviving fighters through a party channel, so they could cheer together when the Horde retreated. It was the first overwhelming victory they’d had in months. The lack of casualties made them giddy. Back in the hangar, the support personnel tackled them with delight. Snafu squirmed out of their embraces, not that he didn’t appreciate their excitement, but he wanted very badly to be alone with Sledge. His auburn hair stood out in the crowd, shining copper under the fluorescent lights. Snafu’s lucky penny.

He caught him in the hallway, yanking Sledge out of the tide of celebrating people and around a corner.

“Okay?” Sledge gave him a once over, and maybe it was the wild look in Snafu’s eyes or the sweat on his skin, because he frowned with concern. “You look pale.”

Snafu felt dizzy; his heart beat too fast, and his palms were clammy. He cupped his hands around Sledge’s neck and the base of his skull, pulling him close, pressing their foreheads together. “I need you.”

Sledge nodded hesitantly, glancing around to make sure no one saw them sneak off. He held Snafu’s hand tight, like he thought he’d float away if he let go, and brought him to his bunk. Once inside, Snafu shoved him onto the bed and crawled over him. Sledge caught his face, hands firm but gentle on his jaw, before he could kiss him.

“Snafu, you need to calm down. Take some deep breaths.”

Snafu sat up, grinding his ass down over Sledge’s hips, and started unzipping his flight suit. “Tell me again.”

“Breathe—oh Jesus.” Sledge shivered under him, hands digging in to the sides of his waist. Snafu could feel his arousal growing.

Shaking his head, Snafu tugged on the zipper of Sledge’s suit, exposing his pale skin and a dusting of sparse red chest hair. He combed his fingers through it, stroking over the soft skin. “Not that.”

“You having a panic attack?” Sledge sat up, one arm wrapping around Snafu’s waist to keep their hips aligned, face so close that Snafu could see the faint freckles on his cheeks.

Snafu wasted no time kissing him, purred with delight at the feel of him, warm and so alive. He nipped at his lips, especially the bottom one, sucking it into his mouth and rolling his tongue over it. Sledge sighed and pressed forward, peeling Snafu’s flight suit off his shoulders. He kissed dirty, wresting control from Snafu, slow and persistent like a river wearing down a rock. When his tongue slipped into Snafu’s mouth, all Snafu could think of was the rim job that’d gotten Sledge arrested.

He rolled off of Sledge, so he could wriggle out of the flight suit. He kicked the control switch of the light panel on the wall, turning on those damnable blinking lights by accident. He held his breath and Sledge froze too, watching him, waiting for him to slide into a trance. But he didn’t; he exhaled with a dry chuckle and reached down to stroke his erection. He smirked at Sledge. “Guess your crackpot therapy worked.”

Sledge huffed a laugh, hopping off the bed to strip. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“Then you shouldn’t have brought me to your bunk in the first place,” Snafu admonished, closing his eyes and thrusting up into his hand. He wasn’t going to last long but that wasn’t the point of this. Sledge made him feel so alive.

“Couldn’t help myself,” Sledge admitted, grunting as he climbed back onto the bed. He grabbed Snafu by his hips and pulled him towards him. Snafu’s stomach swooped at the uncanny display of strength. “I like to fix broken things.”

Snafu grinned as Sledge settled over him, slotting everything together; thighs, hips, chests. One elegant hand swept Snafu’s hair back from his forehead, the other wrapped around both of their cocks.

“Well, you’re stuck with me now.” Snafu bucked his hips up, cocks sliding against each other, reveling in the way Sledge’s eyelids fluttered at the sensation. “One of those, ‘fix it and it’s yours’ kinda deals.”

They rutted together, panting into each other’s open mouths. Snafu drank in the humid air, thick with sweat and desire; one arm slung around Sledge’s shoulder, fingers slipping on the damp skin of his back, the other hand braced on his hip, feeling him flex. Snafu got off on their power dynamic, on the idea that Sledge didn’t have to overpower him, could simply hypnotize him and sweet talk him into all sorts of perverted things. He came before Sledge, who was oh so considerate and thrust into the crease of Snafu’s thigh, avoiding his spent cock, to achieve his own orgasm.

Sledge sat up, staring at Snafu with dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He slammed his palm against the control panel of the lights, switching them off. “You’re mine then?”

“Whether you want me or not.” Snafu shrugged like he didn’t care, but he did. He was used to being alone, being cast aside, but he wanted to belong to Sledge—craved his love, his attention, his bright, caring soul. He’d never wanted anything like this before. And maybe this was the wrong place, considering they were in the middle of a war; and the wrong person, because Sledge was his pilot; but Snafu was so sick of having nothing but madness. Couldn’t the universe let him have just one good thing?

Sledge bit his bottom lip, considering. He leaned over Snafu again, hands braced on either side of his head. A bead of sweat dripped off the tip of Sledge’s nose, falling onto Snafu’s neck, sliding down and mingling with the perspiration already pooled in the dip of his collarbone. “Lord help me, I do want you.”

—

Keeping their relationship secret from the rest of the company was one thing. A relatively simple thing really. They had rules: don’t fool around outside of bunks, no cutesy names or doting behavior. Sledge, having been a closeted homosexual for much of his life, had no issues sticking to the script. Snafu tended to go off the rails sometimes, trying to kiss Sledge’s cheek in the cafeteria or grab his ass in the relative safety of their ship. Sledge scolded him with a blush, but the other personnel just thought it was a new symptom of Snafu’s insanity.

Staying alive on the front lines was another thing. The frequency of Horde attacks increased after that first battle, and every other day they were called out into a skirmish. After a fortnight of fights, a cruiser clipped one of their engines. Snafu managed to take it out before it could turn and ram them again.

“Shit, Sledge, looks like we’re on reserves again.”

Sledge didn’t respond right away and, when he did, his voice sounded uncharacteristically strained. “Seems that way.”

They limped back to the mothership to assess the damage. When they were well out of the range of the enemy ships, Snafu climbed down into the main cabin. Parts of it were on fire. He freaked, grabbing the nearest fire extinguisher and dousing the flames. “What the hell, Sledge?!”

Snafu ran up to the pilot’s seat, where Sledge sat calmly steering amidst the sparking console. “I got it handled,” Sledge assured him, cradling his left hand against his chest. “Just had some electrical kickback from that engine going. It’s fine.”

“Did you notice the cabin was on fire?” Snafu barked. He couldn’t handle it if Sledge died, didn’t even want to think about it.

Sledge ignored him in favor of guiding the ship into the hangar. Snafu was enraged that he was so calm. Clearly, he’d injured his hand—that hand was invaluable, capable of such intricate, delicate work. What if it never worked the same?

Once they’d docked, Snafu helped Sledge out of the ship, fretting over him. A medic on standby rushed over, and Snafu bristled. Sledge grabbed him by the back of his neck with his good hand. “Cool off, Shelton. You can visit me in the med bay later.”

The dismissal rankled Snafu, but he did as Sledge asked, watching him leave with the medic before going to take a shower. He scrubbed the smell of acrid smoke out of his hair, chest tight with worry. If Sledge was badly injured, they would move Snafu to another ship just to keep their numbers up. He doubted that he’d be of any use as another pilot’s gunner, accustomed as he was to Sledge’s flying and voice.

He ran into Burgin on his way to the med bay. “Hey, Shelton, I heard y’all got wrecked.”

“Yeah, I’m on my way to see Sledge now.”

“He’ll appreciate that.” Burgin smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I just want to warn you, between the damage to his ship and his hand, I think they’re gonna pull him for a few months. I’ll have the reassignments by the end of the week I’m sure.”

The static thrummed in his head at the news, panic skittering like a spider up and down his spine. “Thanks for nothin’, Burgin.”

Sledge’s injury was not so debilitating that it warranted a room. Snafu found him sitting on a bed in the crowded hallway of the medical bay, hooked up to an IV with his left arm in a sling. His hand peeked out of it, wrapped tightly with gauze, the fingertips barely visible and blackened with necrotic tissue.

“What the fuck happened?” Snafu stood in front of him, hiding his anxiety with rage.

Sledge took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on the floor. “I got electrocuted. I’m lucky it only fried my hand. There’s stuff I can take to regrow the nerves, but it’s gonna take some time.”

“They’re gonna reassign me, Sledge.”

When Snafu spoke, his voice quivered, and he cursed the vulnerability that he’d developed around Sledge. Hated how Sledge looked up at him with his sad brown eyes, how his right hand twitched on the hospital bed like he wanted to reach out and hold him. But they were in public, where they were comrades, not lovers, and so they refrained from offering each other any comfort.

In private though, in the darkness and secrecy of Sledge’s bunk, Snafu shoved down his own hurt and fears, determined to be the kind of man that Sledge could lean on.

“Take what you want,” Snafu murmured into his shoulder, as he fingered Sledge open.

They hadn’t had sex like this before, too wary of the time it took and the fact that they could be called into action at any moment. Sledge sat in his lap, clung to him with his good arm, the other held carefully between them, hips pushing down onto Snafu’s fingers desperately. He muffled his moans into Snafu’s close-cropped hair, lips pressed tight against the side of his head, just above his ear. “Jesus, I’d almost forgotten how good this feels.”

Snafu envied Sledge, high as he was on pain pills and the sweet starlight pulse of a prostate massage. He liked seeing him this way, trembling and sighing, so different from his usual tightly controlled countenance. He peppered Sledge’s jaw and neck with kisses, whispered into the blue veins along the side of his throat. “Want to ride me?”

“God, yes,” Sledge groaned, weight bearing down on Snafu’s shoulders as he shifted, letting his fingers slip free. He was confident and downright imperious, pushing Snafu flat on the bed with a hand to the center of his chest.

“You thought about this?” Sledge asked, hand warm on Snafu’s cock as he lined him up.

“Well, shit, Sledge. I knew you were a tart from the moment you mentioned your criminal record.” Snafu grinned as Sledge sank down onto him, watching the way his face changed; pouty lips parting, red flush high on his cheeks, and ginger lashes fluttering. Sledge was hot and tight around him, better than anything he’d felt in years.

Sledge threw his head back as he laughed. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Hey, I’m bein’ a gentleman right now.” Snafu swept his hands firmly from Sledge’s trim waist to the crease of his thighs, brought one to curl around Sledge’s weeping cock. “Lettin’ you set the pace an’ everythin’.”

“You’re no gentleman, you just like it when I tell you what to do,” Sledge huffed, thighs tensing as he began to move, thrusting up into Snafu’s fist and grinding back down onto his cock. “I’m honestly surprised that you never got a hard on during those hypnotherapy sessions. The way you shake sometimes...”

Sledge panted, pace quickening. Snafu bit his lip, focused on Sledge’s injured hand, the fear of going back into space without him dampening the urge to orgasm. “Think I could talk you into coming untouched?”

Snafu closed his eyes, arousal heightening at the mental image of sitting on Sledge’s bed in front of those lights and jizzing his pants on Sledge’s suggestion alone. “That’s a kinky idea. Been sittin’ on that long?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Sledge slowed his pace, hand moving from Snafu’s chest to his neck. “I like when you listen to me. When your whole world is narrowed down to just my voice, you’re putty in my hands. You’re the one thing I control in this shithole of a universe and that feeling—” Sledge broke off, gasping, shuddering and squeezing around Snafu in ecstasy. “Oh, it’s so good.”

Snafu opened his eyes, drinking in the sight of Sledge in the dim cabin lights, chest heaving in the wake of his climax. Lazily, Snafu removed his hand from Sledge’s spent cock and brought it up to his mouth, holding Sledge’s gaze as he licked it clean. Sledge’s hand tightened on his neck, pace of his hips stuttering as he continued riding Snafu despite the overstimulation.

“Come on, soldier,” Sledge goaded, leaning incrementally more of his weight on Snafu’s neck until he wheezed. “Let go.”

Like a rubber band, Snafu snapped, feeling pleasantly light-headed as he spilled into Sledge’s warm body.

They couldn’t cuddle in the afterglow. Snafu pulled out and dressed quickly, for he had to meet Burgin in less than an hour for his new assignment. Sledge lounged naked on the bed, dark eyes thoughtful, the corners creased with concern.

“Come back to me, okay?” He reached out to Snafu with his good hand imploringly. Snafu took it and kissed his knuckles, avoiding looking Sledge in the eye.

He didn’t want to see his fear reflected there—that flying without Sledge was a death sentence for him and the poor pilot that got stuck with him. The more Snafu mulled over their relationship and the war they were surely losing, the more he realized that he was alright with dying as long as Sledge was with him.

—

The damage to the nerves in Sledge’s hand and wrist were so severe, he would be out of commission for several months. In the meantime, their company was so short on gunners that Snafu rotated between two pilots, Peck and Hamm. Both had come in with a wave of replacements after Sledge and Snafu’s first crash. While Snafu wouldn’t consider them green, he could tell neither of them were completely comfortable with the ship’s controls. Compared to Sledge, whose technical aptitude made him born to fly, both men flew with jerky motions that aggravated Snafu’s motion sickness. Especially Peck, who had the tendency to rock briefly to the opposite side of whichever direction he meant to turn in.

Fortunately, Snafu didn’t freeze up in the gunner’s seat anymore. The stars never held his gaze, his mind still echoing with Sledge’s words. _Come back to me_. He wouldn’t, couldn’t disobey that order. For nearly a month and a half, those words and Sledge’s sweetness kept him going, but the frequency of firefights was holding steady, and it was only a matter of time and probability before things went to shit.

He woke up in darkness, thinking for a second that he must be floating at the bottom of the ocean. The pressure in his lungs was unbearable, bubbles of warm water bursting against his face. Then he caught sight of an Allied ambulatory ship, trawling through the post-battle wreckage, and heard their hailing signal chirp on his dash. In slow motion, he accepted their call.

“Calling K/3/5F15, this is K/5A76, anyone alive in there?”

“Yeah, Corporal Shelton,” he croaked. It hurt to talk, his breath drawing short with pain. He had a sneaking suspicion that he’d punctured a lung again. He was sure to black out from the pain, but there was something bothering him, some niggling warning in his brain that something else was wrong.

“Alright corporal, we’re gonna grab your pod and haul you back to mother. How’s your oxygen supply?”

“Pod? Where’s the ship? Where’s Hamm?”

The line sizzled with static, a beat of silence passing before the dispatcher spoke again: “Don’t worry about that, corporal. Can you tell me how much oxygen you have?”

This was Walden all over again, he realized, vision growing fuzzy as he fought for breath. They must have been shot to pieces or rammed so hard that the gunner’s seat was ejected from the ship. Why else would they be so concerned about his oxygen? Why else would he have no gravity? Sluggishly, he leaned forward, brushing aside round droplets of blood to read out the oxygen meter on his dash. “10%. Is that bad?”

As he watched, it dropped further from ten to seven.

“Just relax, corporal, we’re taking you back to mother now.”

The meter fell to five.

He shut his eyes, blood beading up thick and warm on his forehead, and thought of Sledge as consciousness slipped away from him. It was odd, because Snafu was sure that your life was supposed to flash before your eyes as you died, but all he could see was his pilot. The coppery highlights of his hair shining warmly in the artificial sun of the rec room, a pink flush glowing under the freckles of his cheeks. His brown eyes heavy-lidded with lust as he loomed over Snafu, the false stars behind him twinkling in the low light of the bunk. And most importantly, Sledge’s low voice, dripping with that unique SBC twang, demanding that Snafu to come back to him.

Snafu felt helpless to obey, blinking blearily in the harsh fluorescent lights of the medical bay. He gazed up at the smooth white ceiling, marveling at the stark contrast between the dark, bloody chaos of space and the spotless, clean lines of the mothership. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.

“You fucking idiot.” Sledge’s voice was hoarse from crying, his hand warm in Snafu’s. “Don’t ever do that again.”

Snafu wanted to roll his head to look at him, but he couldn’t, his neck immobilized by a brace. “The fuck did I do?”

“Died. Two more minutes and they wouldn’t have been able to bring you back,” Sledge pressed Snafu’s hand against his cheek, the skin slick with tears. “When they brought you in you were completely blue. Had a piece of your visor sticking out of your forehead like a goddamn unicorn.”

“What were you watchin’ for, Sledge?”

“Gene.”

“Huh?”

“I love you, asshole. I want you to call me by my name.”

Snafu’s heart stuttered. He could hear it change, the beeping of the electrocardiogram machine at his bedside fluttering and speeding up with the rush of blood in his ears. “You don’t mean that.”

Sledge’s grip tightened, bordering on painful. “Believe me, I don’t want to and I sure as hell didn’t mean to, but it’s like one of those old Earth songs that you like listening to—it just hit me. When I saw you, still and cold on that gurney, I knew. I didn’t know anything else, and I don’t think I ever will.”

Snafu inhaled and exhaled deliberately, trying to calm his racing heart. “Merriell. My name is Merriell.”

He could feel Sledge’s lips on the back of his hand, the curve of them changing from a frown to a smile. “I love you, Merriell.”

The name sounded odd, grating on Snafu’s ears. No one had called him by that name in years. If he thought very hard about it, he realized that the last person might have been his mother and that she probably had said the exact same phrase. He considered returning the sentiment, but Sledge pulled away, patting his hand gently.

“Now, I’ve gotta go get a nurse. I promised I’d fetch one when you woke up.”

When Sledge left the room, Snafu started to cry, tears rolling from the corners of his eyes and down his temples. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly why; maybe relief from being alive, elation because Sledge loved him, or horror because he loved Sledge and they were at war. The dread choked him, along with the knowledge that neither of them were likely to escape their service alive.

—

Just like after Walden, Snafu would take months to recover from the crash. This time, however, he had Sledge. Sledge—with his doting smile and one gentle, functional hand and his beautiful, kind love. He visited every day that Snafu was confined to the med bay, the fluid slowly draining from his lungs. When the staff finally allowed him out to the rec room, Sledge accompanied him, sat next to him in the glow of the artificial sun either quietly reading a book or fondly pestering Snafu about his life before. It felt like a bizarre reversal of roles, except instead of mending a ship they were mending their bodies. After all, the nerves in Sledge’s left hand hadn’t fully grown back yet.

“Tell me about where you grew up.” Sledge fidgeted as he sat with Snafu. He never could sit still, although Snafu wouldn’t categorize his movements as jittery or unintentional. He tinkered; had all sorts of little gadgets or puzzles that he messed with, balancing them on his knees, mini screwdrivers and pliers on the little table beside him. He seemed to be trying to improve the dexterity of his injured left hand; the hand twitching and shaking when he used it to hold things. Snafu didn’t know what he worked on, but he liked the way his long fingers moved, delicate and deliberate.

“Village on the southern coast of what used to be the United States of America,” Snafu replied, watching Sledge wire a small silver cylinder to a computer chip the size of a postage stamp. “We were nomads. Had to move inland every few months when the tide came up or storm season came. ‘Course the storms weren’t really regular or nothin’, there were just some months where they lasted for a couple weeks. Rain and hundred mile an hour wind for days. And they dropped so much water the land was just flooded all the time. Then the wind made waves so high they’d crash inland for miles, tearing up everythin’. After a wave passed, everythin’ was completely wiped out, buried in sand. Nothin’ could grow there.”

“Then how’d you manage to grow there?”

Snafu struggled to remember, his younger years a haze of hunger and endless storms and salt. It was laughable really, because he knew he’d been miserable, malnourished, and persistently fighting for survival. And yet, he missed that planet, longed to feel the sea breeze whipping over his skin, to look up into the grey-green stormy sky, to stand in the surf on a day when the ocean felt like being gentle and feel the sand swirling over his toes. “Well, you know me, Gene. I’m a wily son of a bitch.”

Sledge glanced up at him, smirking. Impish but sweet, like he was holding back those three little words.

“That you are,” he said simply, as close to an ‘I love you’ as he could manage out here.

Snafu was in awe of the emotion. Love—he’d never had it before. If it weren’t for this war, they would never have met, and in some ways, Snafu felt that that made their affection disingenuous. Furthermore, the Allied forces were losing, the turning of the tide never more apparent than now, when they could sit in the rec room and listen to the news announcements. Planets were evacuating, and several governments had already pulled their support. If there was ever a time to fall madly in love, it was now, with impending doom staring them blankly in the face. Maybe the circumstances were unusual, maybe they never would have had each other in a normal world, but…

“What’s the harm?” Sledge purred in his ear. They were in the quiet darkness of his bunk, for Snafu had been released from the med bay at long last. He wasn’t cleared for duty by any means, but the doctors deemed him well enough not to need round the clock care. Sledge seemed eager to hypnotize him.

“I don’t know,” Snafu protested half-heartedly. He _wanted_ to, but he was scared. He’d realized recently that he’d never been this vulnerable with anyone but Sledge. The knowledge had crept up on him, guilt and apprehension pooling in his gut, because he loved Sledge but couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“What if I have a panic attack? We ain’t done somethin’ like this since before the crash.”

Sledge pressed against his back, right hand running up his side softly, the light pressure sparking a twinge of pain when he skated over Snafu’s still healing ribs. “Relax, I won’t let anything bad happen. I love you, alright? I’d never hurt you.”

Snafu shivered and nodded, leaning into Sledge’s warm touch. “I know. I trust you.”

“Before we start, I made something for you.” Sledge dug through his pockets, pulling out a domed silicone cylinder no bigger than his thumb. The base flared out into a flat, wide disc.

“What is it?”

Sledge smiled against the side of his neck and Snafu could feel the heat radiating from his blushing cheeks. “It’s a vibrator. Repurposed the motor out of a dash alarm.”

“Vibrator?” Snafu had never heard of such a thing before. “What’s it do?”

Sledge chuckled, the laughter reverberating through his chest. “How about I just show you?”

Hesitantly, Snafu nodded. He’d never had much interest in, or money for, toys in the bedroom. It embarrassed him, how old-fashioned he appeared compared to Sledge.

“Mind if I put you under?”

“Thought you were gonna show me how to use it.”

“You asked me what it does,” Sledge teased, shifting out from behind him to turn on the panel of lights. “I can teach you how to use it later. I just want to know if you’ll like it first.”

“Okay,” Snafu relented.

He still felt nervous about the hypnosis, but Sledge had never hurt him. Sledge loved him, and if he couldn’t work up the courage to say it back then he would do anything to show him.

“Alright,” Sledge grinned, pleased as he settled behind Snafu again. “Now just relax and let yourself slip into it.”

Snafu stared at the wall, breathing calm and steady, willing himself to sink into the irregular blinking lights. He’d spent so long resisting them, it felt unnatural, alarming even, to try and become entranced by them. Then Sledge whispered in his ear, “Give yourself over,” and Snafu found it easier to fall into that familiar haze of lights and dark static.

The way they whirled, fizzing and popping, reminded him of all those tense moments in the gunner’s seat. He could feel the panic clawing its way up his throat, the muzzle flash of another ship’s guns bright in the distance. Sledge nudged him, redirected him in some imperceptible way, until he was floating calmly in pure black space.

“That’s it, listen to me. Focus entirely on me.”

Turning all of his attention to Sledge was incredibly simple, just a slow blink and he was there—humid breath down the back of his neck, arms carefully encircling his ribcage, thighs snug around his hips. Sledge was hard, erection poking into Snafu’s lower back. Later Snafu would mock him about how quickly he became aroused by this semblance of total control. But right now he couldn’t move, let alone speak.

“Nod or say ‘yes’ if you can hear me.”

Snafu’s head felt heavy, made of stone, as he bobbed it to let Sledge know he was listening.

“Good.” Sledge kissed his nape, the reward sending an unexpected tingle down Snafu’s spine. “Can you move your body? Touch your face if you can.”

For several moments Snafu’s muscles resisted him, twitching furiously as he tried to convince his arms to move, but then they did, trembling fingertips landing on his cheeks. He could feel Sledge’s lips curving into a smile, and that spark of happiness made him warm all over.

“Very good. Now run your hands down your body. Rub where you’re sensitive.”

Snafu started with his lips, brushing his calloused fingers over them softly, marveling at the intense electricity that flowed through him at the simple action. At a snail’s pace, he let his fingers creep down his chin, neck, and collarbone. He was fully dressed, thumbs sweeping roughly over his nipples. The cotton fabric of his shirt felt nice over them, adding a sweet friction that had him leaning his weight firmly back against Sledge’s body.

“Do you feel good?”

“Yeah.” Snafu was shocked to hear his own voice, couldn’t remember opening his mouth. Sledge controlled his attention completely and, now that he mentioned it, Snafu’s nipples felt particularly sensitive. He pinched them through his shirt and rolled them between his fingers, gasping at the heat coursing through him.

“Keep going,” Sledge urged. “Take off your pants.”

The heat grew as he moved. His body still felt particularly slow to respond, but Sledge helped him, braced him as he wriggled out of his pants. When he was free of them, he waited, hands idling low on his belly. Behind him, Sledge’s breath hitched, clearly worked up over something.

“Good, very good.” Sledge’s hand carded through his curls, fingernails scratching lightly over his scalp. “Do you remember what I told you to do?”

“Take off my pants.”

“What about before that?”

Snafu stared into that big black hole in his brain. He wasn’t aware that Sledge had given him other instructions, couldn’t hold on to anything but the here and now. “Dunno.”

“Fascinating. Well, let’s see if I can make you come without touching your cock. Would you like that?” Snafu nodded, suddenly aware of the arousal throbbing between his legs.

“Do you like having your ass played with?” He nodded again, the half-formed fantasy of Sledge rimming him floating up out of the dark haze.

“Hold out your dominant hand.” Snafu complied, and Sledge slicked his forefinger and middle finger with lube.

“Stretch yourself gently,” he ordered, nipping Snafu’s earlobe sharply with his teeth.

Obediently, Snafu reached between his legs, bypassing his aching cock and balls in favor of his asshole. He swirled the pad of his forefinger over the muscle with the slightest pressure, spreading the lube around, the motion syncing up with Sledge’s breathing. He pushed his fingers in slowly, first one and then two. Relaxed as he was from the hypnotic trance, his broad fingers slipped inside with little resistance.

Sledge laughed, voice low and gravely with desire. “Jesus, that was easy. Do you remember the vibrator?”

The word sounded unfamiliar to him. He shook his head, suddenly at a loss for what to do. He kept his fingers in his ass but didn’t move them.

“It’s a kind of toy. I want to put it against your prostate and turn it on. Will you let me?”

Snafu trusted Sledge implicitly—had never experienced any harm from him— and removed his fingers. “Yeah.”

The vibrator was smaller than the combined width of his fingers and slid in easily. It nudged against his prostate, like Sledge said it would, but the lack of a satisfyingly full sensation left Snafu feeling a little cheated.

Sledge pinched the soft skin of his inner thigh, startling him. “Feeling alright?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to turn it on now,” Sledge warned. “If it’s too intense, say Lilliputian. Now repeat that for me, ‘Lilliputian’.”

“Lil…Lilliputian,” Snafu parroted, his tongue tripping over the inundation of the ‘l’ consonant.

Sledge’s fingers stroked, butterfly light, over his thigh. “Very good, you’re being so good. Now, just let yourself feel it. Be as loud or as quiet as you want.”

There was a slight pressure, the vibrator rocking forward slightly as Sledge pressed down on the flared base. Snafu heard the faintest click and then the whole world was buzzing. “Oh, fuck,” he keened at the rapid vibrations on his prostate, lightning zipping up his spine. And it didn’t stop, the feeling was constant, coursing brilliant white through the darkness clouding his vision and growing brighter and hotter. Snafu lost himself in it, dissociated for an eternity from everything except that all-consuming white, pulsating heat.

Then Sledge turned it off, groaning into Snafu’s ear as he pulled the vibrator out. Snafu whined, wanting it back. “Jesus, that was hot. Let me fuck you? Shit, no, don’t answer that—come back, Mer, come back to me.”

To pull out of the trance was like breaking through the surface of the ocean. Snafu panted heavily, limbs trembling as he returned fully to consciousness; becoming aware of the cum streaking up high on his chest, body still buzzing from the vibrator. The contraption lay innocently on the sheets, and he’d never look at it the same way again. “Holy fuck.”  

“Let me fuck you, please.” Sledge sounded so pretty when he begged, precum smearing Snafu’s back, soaking into his shirt. Snafu wondered just how long he’d been hard for. “Turn around so I can see your face.”

“Why’d you take me out of it?” Snafu asked, following Sledge’s command. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

Sledge looked truly desperate for him; auburn hair wild and damp with sweat from the small, muggy room, cheeks flushed pink and bottom lip especially swollen and cherry red, like he couldn’t stop biting it. His cock appeared painfully hard, poking out of his fly, beet red and dripping precum, his right hand clamped tightly at the base to keep himself from coming. “I know, but it didn’t seem right. We haven’t…I wanted you to be present for the first time.”

“It ain’t my first time, Gene,” Snafu snickered, spreading his legs lewdly. “And I’ve got it on good authority that you ain’t a virgin, much as you like to play one in public.”

Sledge’s expression became thoughtful as he stood up to shuck his pants. “Have you ever had sex with someone you love?”

Snafu frowned, acting like he didn’t understand even though his heart was close to pounding out of his chest. “No.”

“Neither have I.” Sledge knelt between his legs and pulled him close. His right-hand grasped Snafu firmly by the waist, but his left only twitched feebly, still locked in its death curl. “Help me out?”

Tenderly, Snafu laid back and tugged Sledge over him, careful to support his left side. Still relaxed from the trance, Sledge fit inside him like he was made to, sighing with relief as he thrust deep, dropping down to his elbows so Snafu wouldn’t have to bear his weight.

Sledge was a talker during sex, his words always so sweet. “Christ, you feel so good. I’m not gonna last long at all.”

Snafu didn’t mind, hoped it’d be quick actually because the head of Sledge’s cock kept brushing against his over-sensitive prostate. He gritted his teeth through the pleasure-pain, buried his face in Sledge’s neck so he couldn’t see him grimacing.

“It just…it feels different now that I love you.”

Those words—Snafu whimpered, wishing he could just say how he felt, but they wouldn’t fall from his lips. He clung to Sledge tightly, goading him on even though his pace was already faltering, becoming jerky and unsteady as he neared that glorious tipping point.

“Make love to me.” It was as close as Snafu could get.

Sledge moaned his name, his _real_ name, as he came, hips driving deep inside him. Snafu could feel it, knew it’d take forever to drip out. He should feel disgusted, covered as he was with jizz and sweat, but he’d never known such love. He pushed Sledge’s beautiful red hair back from his forehead with reverent hands.

“Fuck,” Sledge exhaled heavily, closing his eyes and leaning into Snafu’s touch. “I don’t usually like to top, but something about you…gosh, I’ve never been so riled up.”

He pulled out and sat up, chuckling to himself. “You must think I’m fucking crazy.”

Snafu didn’t move, body leaden and extraordinarily sore now that the rush of endorphins was dying down. “It’s space, we’re at war. Crazy’s the new normal, Gene. Or ain’t you heard?”

Silence fell between them for a beat, loud and somber given what had just happened between them. Snafu stared at the ceiling, the unsteady flashing of the strip lights enticing in his peripheral.

“Merriell,” Sledge paused, swallowing audibly. “Do you—”

“I do, Gene.” Snafu had no idea what Sledge was about to say next, but he wanted him to know, didn’t want him to have to ask. “I do, and I don’t know why I can’t seem to say it.”

Sledge scoffed, and Snafu could imagine him rolling his eyes. “It’s three little words. It’s not hard. If it helps, you can repeat after me.”

Snafu hid his face in his hands. “You wouldn’t, you want me to say it usin’ my own will.”

“What’s the difference? You do love me, don’t you? What does it matter how I get you to say it?”

“Do you need me to say it?”

Sledge let out an exaggerated sigh and scooted close to Snafu again. He looped his good hand around one of Snafu’s wrists, pulling it away from his face, and leaned forward to look at him. His brown eyes were soft and kind. “I don’t need you to, but it would be nice.”

Snafu wanted to, _really wanted to_ , but he couldn’t force the words out. Instead he drew Sledge into a tender kiss.

“You know,” Sledge mumbled against his lips. “I was actually going to ask if you thought we were going to make it out of this war. I heard from Burgin this morning that they’re pulling us back. The priority now is to protect Allied planets as they evacuate.”

“I’m pretty sure this is the end of the line, Gene.” Snafu nuzzled Sledge’s cheek, trying to convey how sorry he was about this whole situation. He just didn’t see the human race surviving any of it.

“That’s okay. We’ll just have to make the most of the time we have left.”

They spent every possible waking moment together. Side by side in the cafeteria, in the rec room, in the med bay during their respective check-ups. People started to comment on their closeness, Burgin warning them half-heartedly about the suspiciousness of their actions. “Remember, you can get court-martialed for fraternizing.”

Snafu laughed, head tipping onto Sledge’s shoulder. “All of mankind is gonna be wiped off the map soon. Who the fuck cares?”

And, of course, they had a lot of sex.

“Wish you’d quit riling Burgin up,” Sledge admonished him, panting as he rode him once again. It hurt, Sledge’s pace jostling Snafu’s aching bones, but he gritted his teeth. “Saying shit like that is as good as admitting we’re fucking.”

Snafu couldn’t respond, too focused on holding on, not wanting to come before Sledge did. When both of them were finally sated, he nuzzled Sledge’s ear, nipping at the shell teasingly. “I don’t care as long as we keep fuckin'.”

If he could get Sledge to rim him just one time, he’d die happy. But much like how Snafu couldn’t seem to say ‘I love you’, he found it hard to ask Sledge for that one small favor. It frustrated him, because Sledge never said no to anything—was into some really kinky shit actually—which meant the barrier was in his own head, like always. And their time was running short, their mothership posted more centrally in Allied space than ever before. The realization that they may not even get the chance to go down fighting felt like being dunked in icy water.

“We’re orbiting my home planet,” Sledge mentioned, as they walked to the rec room one morning.

Snafu snapped to attention. “What?”

Sledge smiled sadly, eyes straight ahead, bright and clear. “It’s such bullshit.”

All Snafu could think about was the communication ban between Sledge and his parents. What Snafu wouldn’t give to talk to his own mother one last time. “Maybe you can call them. Maybe they’ll make an exception since humanity’s goin’ up in smoke.”

“Pretty sure my number is blocked, Snaf.” They didn’t call each other by their real names in public.

“Well, I got a number. Use mine.”

Sledge gaped at him like they were lost in the desert and Snafu had offered him the last sip of water. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I ain’t callin’ anyone with it.”

The hopeful expression on Sledge’s face softened Snafu’s edges. He’d do anything for this boy; letting him call his parents seemed like such a trivial thing. In the rec room, Snafu led Sledge over to the video chat booths and punched in his authorization code. All calls were free now —money didn’t matter where they were going. “Now what’s their number?”

As the line rang, Sledge rested his chin briefly on Snafu’s shoulder. “Merriell, I really do love you. More than anything.”

His voice, barely a whisper, lit a fire in Snafu’s chest, the yearning a pressure building in his lungs. Then Sledge’s mother answered and, feeling shy, Snafu ducked out of the frame, leaving Sledge to talk to his family alone.

Snafu waited in his usual spot, in front of the meadow, for Sledge to finish his call. The glow of the artificial sun warmed his skin pleasantly and he dozed in his chair, daydreaming that he and Sledge lived in a different time and place in this galaxy. Somewhere peaceful, with blue skies and a blue sea, and waves of marsh grass stretching between their little house and the beach. He imagined Sledge’s copper hair as a vivid spot against all the golden sedge, silver sand, and sapphire water. He wanted to kiss him in the surf, taste the salt drying rough on his freckled skin, sink to his knees despite the undertow and ask him to always stay. Hide away with him when the storms roared overhead, rattling their roof and windows, and tremble and laugh at their fragile mortality. Funnily enough, Snafu was really scared of storms; he quivered at the sound of thunder and winced at the sight of lightning. But Sledge would take care of him, he dreamed, distract him by coaxing him open with his mouth and loving him so sweetly that he forgot all about the hurricane on their doorstep.

“Snaf?” He jolted awake at the sound of Sledge’s terrifyingly urgent tone.

“Wha-what’s goin’ on?” Snafu looked up at Sledge, blinking blearily. “You done talkin’ to your parents?”

Sledge was grinning broadly, expression at odds with the wobbliness of his voice. “Yeah, then I walked over here to find you fast asleep with a hard-on.”

Snafu’s trousers felt uncomfortably tight. He reached down to adjust himself, groaning belatedly at the painful way his erection pressed up against his zipper. “Shit, I was havin’ a good dream.”

“Oh yeah? Do I wanna know?” Sledge quirked a brow playfully, sitting down beside him. His hands were shaking.

“I’ll tell you later,” Snafu assured him. “How’re your parents?”

Sledge shrugged, gaze falling to the floor. “Alright, I guess. My mom wouldn’t stop crying. Kept telling me that she wished I had gone to prison instead of taking the plea deal to shorten my sentence—that’s why I enlisted, by the way. I figured joining the military would be easier on my sanity than years of conversion therapy.”

Sledge snorted derisively, running his hands through his hair. “Apparently my brother is missing. He was doing business on one of the planets that the Horde disintegrated last month. She doesn’t know if he was evacuated in time. And my father is in the hospital. He had a stroke. Oh, and my dog died. My neighbor accidentally ran him over.”

Snafu’s heart thundered in his chest, his soul aching for Sledge. “I’m so sorry, Gene.”

Sledge exhaled heavily, fixing him with brown eyes weighed down with grief. But there were no tears. “Can we just go back to bed?”

With a nod, they headed back to the dormitory level, Snafu hanging onto Sledge’s good hand like a lovesick puppy. He didn’t know what to do, wanted to make Sledge happy but didn’t know how. They tended to sleep in Snafu’s bunk and fool around in Sledge’s; the bunks weren’t in the same wing so having sex was a conscious decision. As they neared the fork in the hallway, they pulled in separate directions.

“You wanna sleep?” Snafu felt unsteady on his feet, jerking his head down the hallway that led to his bunk.

Sledge tugged on him, their arms already stretched taught. “I don’t wanna think right now.”

Snafu could understand that, though it stung a little to know that Sledge was using him as a distraction. Sledge treated him differently than normal, anger simmering through his touch, hands and mouth rough. He sucked bruises into Snafu’s skin as he pulled their clothes off.

Snafu tried to slow him down. “Hey, it’s okay to be upset.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Sledge growled, teeth sharp and punishing on Snafu’s nipple.

Snafu arched into the pain with a gasp. “Just wanna take it out on me then? Wanna fuck me dry?”

Sledge pushed him away with a huff. “Why are you suddenly so talkative?”

“I just wanted to do somethin’ nice for you. I feel bad that I ended up causin’ you pain.”

Tears shimmered in Sledge’s eyes, but he blinked them away furiously. “Ignorance isn’t bliss, Mer. I’m happy I got to talk to my mother. It isn’t your fault that she could only give me bad news.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry.” Snafu swallowed around the lump of sorrow in his throat. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you feel better.”

Sledge stared at him for a long moment, looking him over, teeth scraping meditatively over his bottom lip. Then he reached over and turned on the light panel. “Tell me what you were dreaming about.”

To give himself over to Sledge had become second nature. Snafu relaxed into the blinking lights while Sledge continued undressing them, his mind fogging up, vision becoming hazier and hazier. “I dreamt we weren’t here. That we were somewhere safe, where we could be together, and we wouldn’t have to hide. A little house by the sea, on a healthy planet with an ocean and weather like they used to have on Earth.”

“Do you miss Earth, Mer?” Sledge’s hands slid along his neck; the injured one was strangely cold, lacking sufficient blood flow, although he had better control over it now. It flexed just like the other one, muscles demonstrably weaker but growing stronger every day.

“I guess I do, sometimes. I miss sand and grass, the salt and the wind in your face. Did you grow up by water, Gene?”

Sledge guided him down, laid him flat on the bed and crawled between his legs. “No, all our water was underground. My friend Sid had a pool, though.”

“What’s a pool?”

Sledge laughed, bent low now, mouth close to his ear, breath warm, hands trembling on Snafu’s thighs. His brow rested against Snafu’s temple. “I’ll tell you later. Tell me more about our little house by the sea.”

His dream spilled out, falling from shuddering, stuttering lips as he tried to please Sledge, to let him know how beautiful it had all looked.

“It was close to the beach, separated by less than a mile of marsh grass. Tall and golden, not the short meadow they show on the rec room screen. The wind whistles through it…” He trailed off, breath punctuated by short gasps because Sledge was touching him—

“Don’t focus on me, tell me. Tell me about your dream. Don’t leave anything out.”

And suddenly all bodily sensation drifted away. “It’s like a symphony, the waves crashing on the beach and the wind rustling through the grass. I saw you standing there, and all I could focus on was your hair. How bright it looked in comparison to the world around you, pretty and copper. My lucky penny, glinting in the silver sand. And I wanted to tell you how much you meant to me, so I led you out into the ocean—not far, just standing with the water lapping at our knees—and I kissed you and then I knelt there in the surf.”

“To blow me?”

“To ask you to marry me. It’s an old Earth tradition, and I know it’s stupid, but I don’t want you to ever leave me and I—I don’t know how else to show you if I can’t tell you. But then the dream changed, and I remembered the storms we used to hide from, but you were still there with me. You held me when thunder and lightning came, and you—” Snafu cut himself off, breaking out of the trance to slap a hand over his mouth. Even his subconscious didn’t want to say it. He could feel what Sledge was doing now, and he trembled at the sensation of Sledge’s hot mouth and firm tongue.

“What was I doing?” Sledge’s hands dug into the firm flesh of his ass, spreading him, breath humid over him.

Snafu inhaled haltingly, staring up at the ceiling. He removed his hand from his mouth and reached down to pet Sledge’s lovely hair. “This.”

Sometimes Snafu couldn’t look at Sledge without his eyes burning, tears blurring his vision. Sledge was like the sun, a blazing ball of hydrogen gas, drawing him in and consuming him. Radiating more warmth than Snafu could stand. He writhed in the glow, wanted to kick Sledge away as much as he wanted him to devour all of him. Everything in the world paled to the light and warmth that Sledge’s sweet, red mouth brought him.

He supposed it would be okay if he died now.

—

They were cleared for duty at the same time, settling into the seats of their old ship like the embrace of a familiar lover. Sledge seemed excited to be out in space again, humming cheerfully over the comms. In the gunner’s cockpit, Snafu panted through an intense feeling of claustrophobia—the ship was a coffin, not a weapon.

“You know, I kind of missed flying,” Sledge commented during their first drill. He barrel-rolled just for the fun of it, and Snafu shut his eyes against the swirling stars. More sensitive to space-hypnosis than ever, he was stuck in a liminal head space between nauseous and aroused.

“Glad you’re happy. I just want this war over with.”

“Even if it ends with us dying?”

“As long as I die with you, boo.”

When they were back in the hangar, Sledge scolded him for saying something so personal on a public line. In the same breath, he gave Snafu another, contrary order. “I know the world is ending, but we still gotta keep that shit private. And we’re not dying before you say you love me.”

Snafu shivered and grinned, thinking that maybe, as long as he didn’t say it, they could stay alive a little longer. Maybe Allied Central would be destroyed before long and the military would disband. They could fly away then, go back to Earth, and cling to each other on the beach as they waited for the Horde to destroy what was left of the galaxy.

Not long after that first drill, they were called out to a firefight. A handful of Allied ships up against a swarm of Horde Brutes, all buzzing around the Hive that carried a planet-killing bomb. Their captain stepped into the hangar to give them a speech before they took off. Snafu stood sullenly to Sledge’s left, wishing that he could hold his hand.

“K Company…we’ve fought long and hard to preserve the integrity and health of our galaxy. Now I ask for one more good fight. I know how it looks out there. I know you’ve heard the news—that we’re losing, that we can’t stop them—and maybe there’s some truth to those words. But we should hold on to hope that all is not lost. It is our duty to make sure the citizens of this planet have enough time to evacuate, so that mankind can survive and continue on. Do not despair because many of us have lost our homes. Do not give up because the outlook appears hopeless. In the words of an ancient Earth author, we should not go gently into this good night. Rage against our enemy. Let us hold our ground so that our species can live on. Let us fight so that they can have hope.”

Snafu stayed silent, as his comrades, including Sledge, cheered around him. His eyes were sore, and his body felt heavy. He caught Sledge by the elbow when they climbed into their ship, the words on the tip of his tongue.

“Don’t.” Sledge shook his head at him. They had their helmets on, and Snafu couldn’t see his expression, but he could hear the sorrowful quiver in his voice—Sledge was crying. “Don’t say it now.”

Snafu wished he didn’t follow Sledge’s orders so well.

Long ago, Snafu looked up at the stars and yearned to be out among them. Now, immersed once more in the cold void of space, he wanted anything but. Their company was vastly outnumbered, and as they began their deadly dances with the enemy, the end appeared inevitable. The thought of dying never scared Snafu before, but now he sweated with terror. There were too many close calls, the air so thick with phaser fire that it was a miracle they weren’t getting hit.

“Gene, we’re fucked.”

“Mer, if you freeze up on me now, we won’t make it out of this mess. I swear, if you get us killed, I will haunt you for eternity.”

Snafu resolved to keep them alive, although an eternity with Sledge sounded like heaven. When they did get hit, a burst of fire clipping their right wing and sending them spinning, it wasn’t because they weren’t trying. They simply couldn’t keep track of all of the enemy ships.

“Shit, that came out of nowhere.” Before Sledge could right them, they were struck again, their engines exploding under heavy laser fire. “Shit!”

Snafu whirled in his seat, trying to find their shooter, only to realize that they were completely surrounded. In the distance, he could see other Allied ships being bullied in a similar manner, encircled and gunned to pieces by the enemy. “Get up here,” he urged. The gunner’s cockpit doubled as an escape pod, but Snafu didn’t think they would be able to escape. He unclipped himself from his seat and rushed over to the hatch. When he pulled it open, Sledge looked up at him, already halfway up the ladder.

“What’s going on?” Sledge asked, accepting Snafu’s hand, letting him haul him into the gunner’s cockpit. Snafu hurried to secure the hatch, the ship rocking as they took another direct hit, the vacuum of space sucking the hatch down faster than he could close it. Sledge helped him lock it, panic edging into his voice. “How’d they get us surrounded so quick?”

Snafu wrenched off his helmet, heart pounding with horror as he glanced at the Brutes around them. A firing squad.

“What the fuck? Put your helmet—”

“Take yours off,” he begged Sledge, hands scrabbling at the neck of Sledge’s flight suit.

“Are you crazy?!” Sledge caught him by the wrists, resisting, clearly not registering their dire situation.

And Snafu knew there wasn’t much oxygen in the cockpit, felt light-headed already from the thin, cold air, but he didn’t know what else to do. “They’re gonna blow us to pieces, please! I wanna kiss you one last time!”

Sledge glanced over his shoulder at the Brutes lining them up in their sights. He tugged at his helmet, letting Snafu help him pull it off; the dry, staticky air of the gunner’s cockpit caused his red hair to stick up in all directions. He stared, frightened, into Snafu’s eyes.

“Merriell, I—”

Snafu crushed their mouths together frantically. He swallowed the terror and the sadness, desperate to convey that he knew Sledge loved him and that he loved him back. It was too late for words, too late for him to proclaim his undying, everlasting love for Eugene Sledge. Soon, they would be reduced to stardust, and there would be no one left to remember them. Snafu laughed into Sledge’s warm mouth, a broken, hysterical noise. Happy, at the very least, that their lives would end together, molecules fused so completely in their final moments that they could never be parted.  

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, so, turns out I had to kill them to keep it a one-shot.


End file.
